


Then Shall You Truly Dance

by lapetitemort20



Series: Death of The Endless [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF, Virtue Moir RPF
Genre: Ballet Dancer Tessa Virtue, Based on Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Death, Existential fic, Gen, Magical Realism, Singles Skater Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue/OC (kind of), sandman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:10:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapetitemort20/pseuds/lapetitemort20
Summary: She’d recognise those eyes anywhere. They’re a cross between celadon and malachite tints with underlays of grey, amber and jade.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Series: Death of The Endless [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584133
Comments: 36
Kudos: 65





	Then Shall You Truly Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, this universe really captured my heart. It’s very different from what I usually write but it’s also very me so I hope you enjoy this little story. 
> 
> My thanks to two beautiful souls who shared with me their personal stories, of course RookandPawn for her editing and support, AwakeandDreaming for cheering me on and Red_Rover for being the best beta. 
> 
> The title of this fic is the last line from Khalil Gibran’s poem on Death in The Prophet.

“Once there was a way to get back homeward. Once there was a way to get back home. Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby…” a figure hums a soft little lullaby as she lifts a baby out of its crib.

She rocks and waltzes into a swathe of moonlight on the floor in the middle of the room. The night is still, deathly so, but there is a peace that wraps the world in an embrace that feels familiar, comforting. The weight of the baby feels solid in her arms, its infant scent intoxicating, pure and delicious.

How many times had she done this? Too many to count. It doesn’t get any easier, but it isn’t wearisome any longer. 

It just _is_.

The nursery is a generous one, its walls papered by tiny one-legged dancers that recall Hans Christian Anderson’s paper ballerinas. There’s more than enough space for the baby’s crib, an armchair, a French-style armoire, and a large play area dotted with a dollhouse, a range of plush animals and a rocking horse.

The smell of fresh pine needles fills the room. A Christmas tree stands in the corner, tiny lights blinking, illuminating iridescent baubles, shiny tinsel and gold painted Nutcracker soldiers, a mountain of brown papered twine-encircled presents waiting to be unwrapped. Outside, a flurry of snow settles upon the ground like a heavy dusting of icing sugar.

The petite form, shrouded in black and mystery pirouettes around the nursery on tip toe, extending into a delicate arabesque as she holds the tiny human in her arms.

She sometimes wonders how it must feel. To have one of her own. But it isn’t for her. Anthropomorphic personifications have no business breeding. Look at the chaos Zeus unleashed into the world simply because he couldn’t control his loins. Even her brother Dream was not spared, the tragic fate of his son Orpheus serving as a stark reminder that The Endless should not procreate. In any case, a complex set of ancient rules remain; she _cannot_ and _must not_ fall in love with a mortal, or the mortal’s downfall is assured.

And so she walks the realms alone. But she is not solitary.

She’s surrounded by mortals every day. The ones she collects, the ones she infuses into life, the ones she guides. They fill up the very essence of her being, one that had been unhappy a legion of lifetimes ago and multitudinous worlds before, so much so she had refused to carry out her duties.

Chaos reigned as a result. But that was then.

These days, she finds a sort of peace in her duties. She rejects the cold brittleness borne by the grim nature of her job. Instead she looks for beauty wherever she can find it, even in - _especially_ in - the most minute of details. The in-betweens. The instances that happen when no one is watching or paying attention. It’s the infinite gap between existences that makes the big things feel so small, and the infinitesimal so vast.

Death is a gift. But only if you see her that way. It’s a shame that most don’t.

“Get away from her,” a low voice starts.

Death spins around to see a man standing in the doorway.

“Please,” he begs.

She looks down at the still warm body of the baby. She’s at the steps of the sunless lands now. “It’s too late.”

“Give her back to me!”

“I can’t do that.”

“You can, if I think you are who you are,” comes his hoarse and desperate whisper.

Strange women don’t simply come in waltzing into a house at some godforsaken hour. He’d had a strange feeling all evening, but he couldn’t place it. His sleep had been in starts and fits, and so he had come into the nursery to check the newest addition to his family and shake off the dread in his bones. It was almost feeding time anyway.

But what he saw didn’t ease his fear. There could be no doubt who this phantasm is. She doesn’t look like the fictional depiction of the Grim Reaper, but she most certainly is the Angel of Death. He’s seen her before - when she came for his own mother, not too many years ago. She looked the same then - wild dark hair, eyes that hinted at forever, and a strange sigil around her neck.

“I could, after a fashion...but why would I do that, Jim?”

He blinks.

She knows his name.

It takes him a whole second to answer but he tries, because any price is worth saving his youngest.

“Because she’s so new. I’ve had a whole life. Take me instead,” he pleads.

“She’s gotten what anyone else gets. Nothing more, nothing less.”

 _A lifetime_ , he thinks. How is it measured? In moments, seconds, hours, experiences? It hardly seems fair.

“In any case, I don’t make deals.” Everyone bargains for more life at the end, yet they forget it’s not the length but the depth that makes any of it meaningful. _Is this different_?

“You could if you wanted to.”

There’s a long and pregnant pause. A lifetime could fit inside it. Death appears to be reflecting.

Outside, there is a call of an owl that breaks the stillness. She has plenty more to do this night andshe needs to be on her way.

“Your date is marked in Destiny’s book, Jim,” Death explains. “This…deal…changes that. Make no mistake however, I will have you both.”

He nods as if he understands.

“It will also alter the course of events…or rather, what is to happen. She won’t have it easy.”

Silence.

“And neither will you.” Another warning.

He doesn’t care.

She gives him but a glimmer of promise. “It will be a semi-charmed life though, if she wants it.”

“Then that’s more than I can ask for.” There’s a small tremor in his voice.

“I don’t know why I care too much.” She sighs and puts her hands up as if in defeat. “But I do.”

He expresses his gratitude with a heartfelt expression.

She considers him for a long while, her dark eyes glittering like diamonds in the night. As hard and as flawless.

“Alright,” with a tip of her head to signal the end of their business. “Merry Christmas, Jim. I’ll be seeing you.”

And he’ll be waiting.

There’s a mighty sound of beating wings. The baby is back in her crib, for now remaining untouched, but still marked by time and Destiny.

***

Let no one say that Death walks an indolent path. She works hard. She’s omnipresent. Where there is life to give she is there, and so it is where there is life to take. It is said that when the universe is ended, she’ll be there to pack it all up and lock the door.

It can be a heavy burden at times, this power, but she’s learnt to live with it. She’s gentle now because she understands the fear every being feels when facing her. Her sojourn as a mortal every century cements her compassion. She knows how a friendly face can make all the difference.

So it’s refreshing when she doesn’t sense dread.

“You can come out little sister,” she calls.

She closes her eyelids for a moment, her brief moment of respite over. She rarely gets time to herself in her own domain. Despite her sempiternal nature, her home can be considered rather modern. It’s fashioned after a 20th century Frank Lloyd Wright-style design which suits her just fine, because she believes, much like good ol’ Frank that above all integrity, ‘ _buildings like people must first be sincere, must be true_ ’. And true it is, it’s a haven for, amongst other things, her hat collection, as well as her goldfish Slim and Wandsworth.

There’s a muffled giggle under the table in Death’s dining room. Out pops a head, along with several bubbles that the figure has blown. One is in the shape of diamonds, another a shape of a large dog.

A rainbow follows this anomalous being. Except it’s really her hair. Well, part of her hair. The other part is shaved close in an undercut.

Delirium always was before her time.

She’s dressed in a panoply of colours and walks almost as if she is inebriated, but Death knows better. The youngest of The Endless isn’t three sheets to the wind, she’s just rapturous. She used to be Delight, but she too changed, not always for the better, but it’s an evolution nevertheless. Her fragmented perspective is interesting, to say the least, and almost always insightful.

“I didn’t hear you call from the gallery,” declares Death.

“What’s the word for the thing that happens when you’re trying to grasp the feeling of when you fell in love for the first time, but you don’t know if you can ever feel that happy again?” Delirium asks, as she walks over to where Death is seated and reading.

Death searches the aeons of her memory. “Regret?” she offers, after a moment.

“Oh no, not that one. That’s too sad.”

“It is.”

Delirium sings a little mournful tune about fish and then exclaims, “Ah, I remember it now!”

“What is it, Del?”

Delirium props her head in her palms, with a quixotic slope of her mouth, “ _Hope_ , of course.”

“Of course,” Death smiles. “I should have known better. Thank you for reminding me.”

“There are other ways outside the garden, you know?”

“I do indeed.” Death sets the book she was reading aside and stands up, wanting to place an arm around her sister before she remembers not to. “Would you like to accompany me for a little while today?”

Delirium jumps up and down, clapping her hands in jouissance. “You mean I get to watch someone die?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh goodie, Barnabas would like that too!” Delirium’s one blue eye and one green eye sparkles, but her pet dog is nowhere to be found.

***

They walk the earth, side by side, a strange sight if you could actually see them. One is dressed in all black biker boots, jeans, a thick pea coat over a turtleneck, an ankh around her neck and a shock of dark hair tied up into a messy bun; the other clad in a clash of colours and chunky layers of eccentric, mismatched garments. If you saw them, you would think the bond they share a little offbeat. But mortals don’t see them traverse the shifting knife edge between their realm and other worlds unless they will it.

They head towards the city centre, enjoying the crisp winter sunshine. Delirium talks mostly, but Death has learnt to take her sister’s ramblings with a pinch of salt. She knows Delirium’s madness causes her to understand a lot more of what’s going on than she lets on.

A red balloon floats into the azure expanse of the sky. Death looks up and shields her eyes against the brightness of the sun, the outline of the lopsided latex sphere marking a silver shadow in her field of vision. In the distance she hears the merry cries of children playing in the brisk cold, their breaths frosting up in the sunshine, over the sound of booming music. A banner announces a Christmas fundraising event in aid of the Endowment Foundation for The National Ballet of Canada.

They walk through the square, and Death does what she normally does - which is to capture snippets of conversations and pieces of living around her. She usually tucks these morsels away to examine later, when she can contemplate the substance and significance of the human condition.

She overhears a conversation between two women; the first a lithe, dark-haired figure with striking green eyes. But it’s the shade of green that gives her pause, one she’s seen only once before on a piercingly arctic night 25 years ago.

She’d recognise those eyes anywhere. They’re a cross between celadon and malachite tints with underlays of grey, amber and jade.

The woman, to whom they belong, is wrapped up in a big puffer with faux fur trim over a simple dance outfit, whilst the second is clothed in casual streetwear winter uniform of jeans, boots and a big teddy coat.

“Congratulations on your appointment as principal dancer!”

“Thank you, it’s a dream come true,” the dancer replies, polite and genuine.

“You’re too modest, Tessa. After your surgeries last year, this is an amazing accomplishment,” the other lady enthuses.

“That’s sweet of you to say, but I did what I could under the circumstances. Anyone would have done the same.”

“I don’t think you understand,” the other woman continues, shaking her blonde head. “I’ve followed your career. The ballet world said you were done, yet you shone like a beacon through the pain - you were so brave and determined.”

The one named Tessa nods, “It was...difficult, to say the least. I had to relearn how to walk. But the thought of never dancing again was more painful than anything else. So, here I am!”

The other lady takes a hold of Tessa’s hand. “Well, I just wanted to tell you how much you helped me, especially when I thought I couldn’t cope anymore,” the lady’s eyes begin to well up.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Tessa asks gently, her arm winding around the blonde’s shoulders.

The lady pauses before taking a deep breath, launching into her story of despair after an accident left her with a brain injury. She couldn’t recognise herself anymore, and felt a kind of psychological torture and physical anguish at not being able to return to the person she once was.

She tells of the lows she experienced changing psychiatrists and neurological specialists as if she had been spinning around in a revolving door, with no control, begging to be referred to a concussion rehabilitation centre. She had starting cutting herself in order to gain some semblance of power, but also got addicted marijuana to numb her anxiety.

But that all stopped when she had watched Tessa dance the principal role in Giselle as anunderstudy. She had been so overcome by Tessa’s dancing, her struggles through injury, and the beauty of the ballet, its themes of love, betrayal and rebirth, that it had completely renewed her strength and faith in herself. Both of them are in tears by the time she’s finished telling her story.

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“You saved my life,” the blonde wipes at her eyes.

“I don’t think that’s true at all. I think you did that, all on your own.”

Death averts her gaze as the two women fold their arms around each other. It feels like she’s stumbled onto a scene that is so intimate, one she shouldn’t be watching.

Two things strike her. One; she feels an irrefutable pull towards Tessa. And two; looking at Tessa is like looking at herself in the mirror, without the graphic symbol under her right eye.

“Is she one of yours?” she casts a glance to Delirium, referring to the blonde, as they start walking again.

“Hmmmm? Oh! Not anymore. Is she one of yours?”

“Not today. But he is,” Death points out to a grey, moustached man hurriedly crossing the street, who moments later gets hit by a car running a red light at a busy intersection.

“That’s really messy. Ugh,” Delirium makes a face, then turns to walk in another direction, chasing several floating angel fish unseen by the earthly dimension.

“It usually is.”

Death stands beside the older man, who’s watching the melée of cars, people screaming and the traffic chaos happening before him.

“Hi Jim,” she calls out. “You feeling okay?”

“Ummm, I don’t feel too good. I look pretty beat up,” he answers, rubbing his head gingerly.

“That’s alright, you’re not in any actual pain just yet. Everything happened rather quickly.”

“I was trying to get to Te-. Wait, am I…dead?”

“Not yet.”

“Hmmm, not how I expected.”

She shrugs, as if to say _I don’t make the rules_. Except for the fact that she sort of does.

“Do you remember our agreement?”

He nods. “How come I’m still here then?”

“I don’t think you’re quite ready to leave just yet.”

“Are we ever?”

“Good point. Consider it a special favour, in honour of our deal so many years ago,” Death offers. “Do you need some time...to say goodbye?”

“I’d really like to see my kids.”

She dips her head in an acquiescent gesture. Slipping her arm through his, she guides him tenderly back into his body, “C’mon, why don’t you stay just a little bit longer?”

***

Death roams the halls of hospitals often. She knows them like the back of her hand. After all, they come with the territory. One doesn’t look so different from another, but still, she discerns every minuscule variation despite the similar cold lights and sterile ambiance. Honestly she wonders why humans don’t design them more cheerfully, especially if it’s a space of healing or to end one’s days. In that sense, modern medicine has got it so wrong.

She slips in and out of the hospital’s darkened rooms and hushed corridors to collect those owed to her. She leads them to the edge of the sunless lands like a Pied Piper to her flock, but the rest of the journey is theirs. Sometimes they get to say goodbye to the living, sometimes they don’t. Some, like Jim, will hang on until he gets the chance to pay his penance.

He’s in the ICU, brain dead for all intents and purposes but kept alive via a series of machines that allow his heart to continue beating and the rest of his body to function. His family have already been informed, but it’ll take a while.

She’ll wait. She has all the time in the world.

She had warned Jim of the wending path his life might take, but she doesn’t imagine that he realised the price it would cost him. His betrayal in pursuit of living a full life had resulted in the greatest sacrifice - the love of his two daughters. Regret was a common companion at her side, yet it still made her sad to see the futility of it all.

Some dread Death for this very reason, as if she were responsible for it all, her breath cold in the very air they inhale, reminding them of the pain they inflicted whilst alive. She doesn’t blame them. In a way, that fear is a very powerful motivator. Mortality is the only reason why people aim for the heavens while they’re on earth. Because the after is unknown, all they really have is the _now_.

There’s a hushed conversation just outside one of the hospital’s operation theatres.

“I know about your fear,” a male voice says. “I understand it.”

A surgeon in scrubs is clasping on to the hands of his patient, a feisty woman with dark hair and alabaster skin who’s been diagnosed with pneumothorax, or a collapsed lung. She’s trying to be brave but she’s so scared, Death can smell her terror like a pungent stench.

“I want you to know that I’ve got you. If at any moment you don’t want to go through with this, you let me know. We can wait, but not too long,” he continues. “But know this, I won’t let anything happen to you. Let me worry.”

The patient stifles a sob halfway in her throat.

“Hey, look at me,” the surgeon squeezes her hand tighter and searches her eyes. “I’m not worried, I’ve got you.”

He high fives his patient before they wheel her in. She’s a fighter, that much is sure, but he’s also confident in his abilities to stave off the inevitable for now. He’s seen more demise than he has any right to, but he’s also under no illusions. He’s one of the many who serve the Dark Angel. He feels her presence nearby now, as he almost always does, yet today it’s not as close as it would be if she were here to collect.

 _Thank you_ , he utters under his breath.

She smiles in return. They’ve had plenty of conversations, this doctor and her, debating dignity in death and otherwise. But this isn’t the reason why she smiles. She does so because sometimes she is more a watcher than participant. That even without her guidance, humanity is capable of saving themselves and each other.

“Ummm...can we go now?” Delirium asks, appearing out of thin air. “This place gives me the heebie jeebies!”

She hadn’t realised that her little sister was still with her. She had come to expect her siblings to come and go as they please. After all, they had work to do, like her.

“Yes, shall we go back to the place with the balloons?”

The childlike figure next to Death is beside herself with delight. It isn’t all altruistic, however. Death is on a mission to find the woman with the green eyes.

Whilst Delirium is off chasing balloons in the square, Death locates the subject of her search. One of the charities the NBC supports is The Children’s Aid Society for foster care and Tessa has just finished a ballet session in a heated tent with a large group of kids.

She’s standing outside, rubbing her hands together to ward off the chill.

“Coffee?” Death offers.

Tessa turns, startled to see a near identical image of herself. “Oh...yes, thank you. I need it.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Not at all, these kids are amazing,” she replies. “I just...it’s inspiring for me to be around them, knowing what they’ve been through.”

“Want to talk about it?”

Tessa’s about to answer _no_ , but somehow, the raw nerve that’s been exposed from the lady’s earlier narrative, then teaching these kids and listening to their stories convinces her otherwise. She sits down on a nearby bench. Suddenly she feels exhausted, but it’s only just after lunch.

“I’m DeDe, by the way,” Death sticks out her hand.

“Tessa.”

Death sits down next to Tessa. After a little while, she decides to ask, “Does it hit too close to home?”

Tessa balks. This stranger certainly doesn’t pull any punches, but she finds herself wanting to open up, despite her usual reticence. There’s just something about her doppelgänger she feels she can trust.

She sips at the almond milk latte that’s been offered to her. The heat from the cup on her hands warms the cold sting she feels in her body somewhat. “A little. Not the foster care part, but being abandoned by a parent.”

“Ah,” Death punctuates thoughtfully.

“I just got a call telling me he was in an accident,” Tessa explains. “We’ve been estranged for a few years.”

There’s a long silence. The sunlight dances in the square as a frigid wind blows, and the energy of life seems to throb and pulsate around them.

“What are you going to do?”

“Do you…think you can ever get over the pain…of being lied to?” Tessa answers the question with another question, each word a slow tumble out of her mouth.

Death doesn’t have to dig too deep. She’s seen a lot. “Physical suffering is evanescent, but an affliction to the soul is much more difficult to forget.”

Tessa contemplates this answer.

“Here’s the thing though. Are you tired of remembering it that way?” Death prompts. “The sadness. Do you want to let go of the past, and forgive?”

Tessa takes a deep breath, because her next words are a torrent of confession.

“Forgiveness—” she toys the word around her mouth, the three syllables unfamiliar against her tongue. “—it’s not for _him_. It’s for me. I kept him away. Whatever he did to my mother, he’s still Dad. He tried to be good. He did what he could. It’s not his fault that I put him on a pedestal and then hated him for failing me.”

“It’s not yourself you dance for, is it? All the times he never saw you. Wasn’t allowed to?” Death prods gently.

Tessa shakes her head heavily, brimming tears threatening to spill through her eyelashes.

“What if I’m not able to dance the way I do if I let go of all the sadness? Maybe I’m only as good as that. Maybe holding on to it is the only way of making it last, making the memory real.”

Death finds Tessa’s hands in a tender grasp. “There’s beauty in joy too. And freedom. It’s alright to absolve your past wrongs…maybe forgiveness is right where you fell.”

Tessa gives out a nervous laugh. She might as well pour her heart out now that she’s voiced out her saddest thoughts.

“That’s not all, is it?”

“No. There’s someone I wanted to see today. I don’t know how long he’s here for but I don’t think I can see him now, because of what’s happened with my father.”

In Death’s mind she sees a graceful man surrounded by an expanse of ice. He’s strong. Beautiful, driven. There’s a powerful bond between the two, one that hasn’t been nurtured for a long while, but compelling and evocative still.

“Soulmates are not found. They’re forged. You’ll see him again, if it’s meant to be.”

Tessa thinks back to her best friend, the one she skated ice dance with since she was seven and he was nine. The one she had refused the NBC for two years later, but then abandoned when they came calling for her once again at 14. Scott and her had unknowingly fallen in love with each other by then, but the forbidden nature of it all for the sake of their professional partnership drove her to choose her other passion. Ballet.

She remembered his eyes the most when she had told him her decision. Intense and accusing. But above all, heartbroken.

She had never spoken to him again, lamenting this fact every single day thence. He’d gone on to become a gold- and silver-medal winning Olympic singles skater without her, triumphant in every Junior and Senior title he’d ever competed in. As an ice dance pairing they had been formidable, but as an individual male figure skater he was unstoppable, known as a once-in-a-generation talent.

Perhaps it was better that she hadn’t held him back from achieving greatness.

He is here in Toronto now, the last day of the Canadian Championships in his run up to Olympic gold in South Korea in a few months. She wanted to watch him and let him know she was there, his number one fan, even after all this time. But fate seemed to have other plans.

“I’m scared it isn’t,” is all she says.

Death recalls the question Delirium had asked her earlier in the day. The one about remembering the feeling of falling in love. “Dreams are hope, and echoes of hope.”

“That’s a little cryptic,” Tessa cracks, a rueful smile tugging at her lips.

“Eh...not really,” Death’s shoulders raise in a slight shrug. “As long as there is hope, there is possibility. Everything is knowable, we just have to find it, —” she smiles then, “— so, go see your father. Know yourself in relation to him, with and without. I promise, you’ll find closure and freedom.”

Tessa nods, her mind already made up.

“And as for love, there’s someone very special out there for you, Tessa.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

They sit together for a while, luxuriating in the quiet companionship of the other. This strange conversation, with an even curious stranger, leaves Tessa oddly hopeful. Somehow she gets a feeling that everything will turn out alright.

***

“Daddy?” she murmurs softly as she enters the room, a slow beeping and hissing the only sounds that give away the fact that there’s someone lying in the hospital bed. She doesn’t expect an answer, but she calls out anyway.

She hasn’t seen him since her parents’ acrimonious divorce, but he looks smaller, more fragile than she remembers. It could be the fact that he’s hooked up to a ventilation machine, with tubes sticking out from different parts of his body. He’s pale, a shadow of his former self, save for the fact she doesn’t know how he looked these past few years since she spurned him for taking off with another woman and abandoning his family.

Except he hadn’t abandoned them really. He still had maintained a good relationship with her brothers, but neither she nor her sister wanted anything to do with him.

She feels like crying again, but this time she draws upon the well of strength she knows exists within her. The one that got her through two excruciating surgeries and years of blinding pain before then. She needs to show fortitude now, as she did then.

How many years did she waste being angry and hurt? How could she blame him for wanting happiness in his life? She had known for a long time already that her parent’s marriage was troubled. Why had she expected them to stay together for her own sake? She was already an adult when they split, yet she still felt like a little girl when it came to him. And worse of all, why did she allow the trauma of betrayal hold her back from seeking her own happiness? She wanted to know too, had he been happy, was the decision he made worth the sadness he had caused?

So many questions that she would never get the answers to, at least not from him. But perhaps she could at least start to form her own.

It all begins with forgiveness.

She pulls up a chair and sits facing him. The chair is hard and stiff beneath her seat bones, cold too. She guesses it makes sense not to make things too comfortable at a hospital, otherwise no one would ever leave. The fluorescent lighting does nothing for the ambiance, even her hands look as if she was on Death’s door. She stares at them for a long while as she fidgets with the dry cuticles around her fingernails and tries to form sentences in her mind before she speaks them into existence.

She reaches out for his hand. The doctor had told her that her father would likely not be able to hear her, but it could help just to talk. The veins in his hands bulge blue and green against his mottled skin.

Is this what age does? Is Death always this harsh?

She thinks about the terrain her father might have walked. The forks in the roads he had chosen. The path least taken. She would never know the sacrifice he had made for her that glacial, frosty night so many years ago when he exchanged his life for hers, but right now, she knows the one that she will make.

They are three words she needs to feel the burden of sorrow lift from her delicate shoulders.

Not ‘I love you’.

Not ‘I am sorry’.

“I release you,” she whispers, her head bowed over the hand she clasps in hers.

In almost the very next instant, the steady beep of the heartbeat monitor flatlines. There are no tears now. Tessa draws in a long, deep breath, exhaling years of worry and disconsolation that had overtaken her muscles, easing a tightness she hadn’t even known was there.

What she’ll find out later is that letting go will finally give her the flow of movement she’s been chasing in her dancing for so long.

It will also open her heart to trust in love again.

When the nurses come, Tessa stands back, watching, almost detached, as she observes them unplugging the ventilation machine that was keeping her father alive until it didn’t. She steps out of the room, feeling only a sense of calm and tranquility. She supposes she should call her brothers to find out if they’re on their way.

Once she’s made her calls, she fiddles again with her phone. It’s evening now, and all she can think of is how Scott did in his Free Dance today. She had seen online that he was leading after his short programme the day before, but would he be Canadian champion for the eighth time?

She fingers her phone tentatively. Then she Googles his name anyway. Photos of him fill her phone. He looks good. And better yet, he looks happy. He’s won it, making him the most decorated male figure skater in the world. She’ll probably watch him on TV when he performs at the Winter Olympics, in which he will no doubt be victorious.

She’ll find him again. _One day_.

For now though, maybe it’s enough to pay attention to her own moments, even as they are slipping away.

She pockets her phone into her jacket and slips back into the room to say goodbye to her father one last time.

***

Death walks the corridor once more.

She sometimes finds herself asking whether what she does is a form of guidance or merely meddling. Delirium had once said that _their existence deforms the universe_ , even her brother Destruction had all but given up his mantle. So why does she carry on?

The answer to that is simple. The Endless are necessary. They are neither masters nor slaves of the living. They are part of the utter fabric of the universe, of being.

Because of her very nature, Death _defines_ life.

Much like Despair defines hope, Destruction with creativity, Desire and apathy, Delirium sanity and Dream with reality. Without them, everything ceases to have meaning.

And so Death carries on her duties, knowing that one day, after all is said and done, it will end for her too.

She watches Tessa kiss the brow of the man who lies still in the hospital bed. His corporeal body may not have gotten to say goodbye or tell his family all the words he wanted to, but the one standing beside her waiting now is free and hopeful, ready for his next adventure.

“Merry Christmas, Jim,” she smiles.

Their eyes meet, and he offers his arm out to her, when really it’s her who is escorting him to his next destination.

They make an interesting trifecta; Death, Delirium and a mortal man as they walk out onto the snowy streets of Toronto, humming along as they go.

_Golden slumbers fill your eyes, smiles await you when you rise, sleep pretty darling, do not cry and I will sing a lullaby..._

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re a fan of Neil Gaiman, like me, you’ll recognise Death and her siblings. I was inspired by their characterisations but this story is completely original. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought either here or on Twitter @lapetitemort20 x


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